Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/156

CHAPTER 7. DOROTHY VISITS PHOENIX 143 The Hopi had spoken of wishing to protest against the inclusion of their name in the Navajo–Hopi bill, so I wrote to my Hopi friend telling him I would collect money for his expenses from radical Catholics and pacifists here if he would accompany me. I told the Old Pioneer that I would leave on the 26th. of March. Joe is slow to make up his mind on anything and would not say whether he would go or not. When I got word that my Hopi friend was going, Joe decided that we three should go in his Willys pickup.

I already had my summer garden planted, except melons and later crops and irrigated it on Saturday. That evening Joe came out and got my sleeping bag. Rik made some picketing signs for me and we were there for supper. About 10:45 p.m. we received a phone call that my Hopi friend and Dan Kuchongva, spiritual leader of the traditional Hopi, were in town and would be over in a few minutes. They brought bed rolls with them and piki bread. Rik's children were wide eyed to see real Indians. We left at 7 a.m. Sunday. I reclined in the back; partly under blankets. We stopped at the Catholic church in Tempe where our good CW priests Bechtel and Rook, held forth, and said a prayer for the success of our journey, Dan sang Hopi prayers and Joe and I thought the best we could do was to say our pacifist–anarchist, non-church prayers. Near Florence we sawbeautiful cactus blossoms peeping through to enliven the desert. (Mother Bloor had hiked over the country at the age of 65 and said the most beautiful spot was this very place.) Before we got to Tucson it was snowing and raining and I shivered to think how far we were from our destination.

We went to the home of Ralph, a Hopi silversmith who had done time in chains at Keams Canyon years ago with Dan for non-cooperation with the white conqueror whose policy it was to kidnap the Hopi children and send them to missionary schools. His wife and daughter prepared us an excellent meal and as the rain let up we built the back of the pickup into a secure and nearly rainproof shelter for the one whose turn it would be to sleep there while the other three sat in front.

By 3 p.m. we were headed for El Paso. We had intended to take the middle route through Meredian, Miss., but storms in that vicinity sent us southward. A little later the sun shone through the clouds for the first time that day and Dan stopped and placed eagle feathers along the road side saying the appropriate prayers for our journey. He also scattered sacred corn meal before the car and about ten paces ahead, with prayers. Joe and my Hopi friend took turns driving and we did not stop except for coffee or gas until just before dark when we arrived at Dr. Herbert Shelton's rest home in San Antonio. He had told me to stop and he would give me free copies of his HYGIENIC REVIEW dealing with fasting, which is a basic therapy in his conquering of the disease of people who finally like the woman in the scripture "suffer from many physicians." He was not in just then but later Joe and I visited him and found him most gracious. He said that at times he felt more anarchistic and at other times more socialistic. He was not religious in the church sense, but strange as it seemed to us opposed birth control because it was unnatural. He felt that the CW program "coddled the unfit," but we did not argue with him for we felt that on the subject of health he was the master, and he did not pretend to be an ethical expert. We found